VitraHaus / Herzog & de Meuron

Over the years the Vitra Campus has become an architecture museum, featuring works by the most renowned architects: Frank Ghery, Zaha Hadid, Alvaro Siza, Tadao Ando, Jean Pruvé, Nicholas Grimshaw, Buckminster Fuller and SANAA (under construction).

The latest addition to the complex is the VitraHaus building, a series of stacked pitched-roof boxed, designed by Herzog & de Meuron for Vitra’s Home Collection:

In January 2004, Vitra launched its Home Collection, which includes design classics as well as re-editions and products by contemporary designers. As a company whose previous activity was primarily focused on office furnishings and business clients, Vitra created the Home Collection with a new target group in mind: individual customers with an interest in design.

Since no interior space was available for the presentation of the Home Collection on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, the company commissioned Basel-based architects Herzog & de Meuron in 2006 to design the VitraHaus. Thanks to its exposed location and striking appearance, it not only enhances the already outstanding ensemble of Vitra architecture, but assumes the important role of marking the Vitra Campus. Standing on the northern side of the grounds in front of the fenced perimeter of the production premises, the VitraHaus joins two other buildings in this area, the Vitra Design Museum by Frank Gehry (1989) and the Conference Pavilion by Tadao Ando (1993). The ample size of the plot made it possible to position the new structure a good distance away from the Vitra Design Museum and adjacent gatehouse, making room for an extension of the orchard meadow in front of the buildings, a typical feature of the local landscape.

The concept of the VitraHaus connects two themes that appear repeatedly in the oeuvre of Herzog & de Meuron: the theme of the archetypal house and the theme of stacked volumes. In Weil am Rhein, it was especially appropriate to return to the idea of the ur-house, since the primary purpose of the five-storey building is to present furnishings and objects for the home. Due to the proportions and dimensions of the interior spaces – the architects use the term ‘domestic scale’ – the showrooms are reminiscent of familiar residential settings. The individual ‘houses’, which have the general characteristics of a display space, are conceived as abstract elements. With just a few exceptions, only the gable ends are glazed, and the structural volumes seem to have been shaped with an extrusion press. Stacked into a total of five stories and breathtakingly cantilevered up to 49 feet in some places, the twelve houses, whose floor slabs intersect the underlying gables, create a three-dimensional assemblage – a pile of houses that, at first glance, has an almost chaotic appearance.

The charcoal color of the exterior stucco skin unifies the structure, ‘earths’ it and connects it to the surrounding landscape. Like a small, vertically layered city, the VitraHaus functions as an entryway to the Campus. A wooden plank floor defines an open central area, around which five buildings are grouped: a conference area, an exhibition space for the chair collection of the Vitra Design Museum and a conglomerate comprising the Vitra Design Museum Shop, the lobby with a reception area and cloakroom, and a café with an outdoor terrace for summer use. A lift takes visitors to the fourth storey, where the circular tour begins. Upon exiting the lift, the glazed northern end of the room offers a spectacular view of the Tüllinger Hill. The opposite end – where the glass front is recessed to create an exterior terrace – opens to a panorama of Basel with the industrial facilities of the pharmaceutical sector. As one discovers on the path through the VitraHaus, the directional orientation of the houses is hardly arbitrary, but is determined by the views of the surrounding landscape.

The complexity of the interior space arises not only from the angular intersection of the individual houses but also from the integration of a second geometrical concept. All of the staircases are integrated into expansive, winding organic volumes that figuratively eat their way through the various levels of the building like a worm, sometimes revealing fascinating visual relationships between the various houses, at other times blocking the view. The interior walls are finished in white in order to give priority to the furniture displays.

With maximum dimensions of 187 feet in length, 177 feet in width and 69.8 feet in height, the VitraHaus rises above the other buildings on the Vitra Campus. The deliberate intention was not to create a horizontal building, the common type for production facilities, but rather a vertically oriented structure with a small footprint, which grants an overview in multiple senses: an overview of the surrounding landscape and the factory premises, but also an overview of the Home Collection. Just as interior and exterior spaces interpenetrate, so do two types of forms: the orthogonal-polygonal, as perceived from the exterior, and the organic, which produces a series of spatial surprises in the interior – a ‘secret world’ (in the words of Herzog & de Meuron) with a suggestive, almost labyrinthine character. On their path through the five stories, visitors traverse the Vitra Home cosmos, ultimately returning to their starting point.

The VitraHaus has a daytime view and a night time view. In the evening, the perspective is reversed. During the day, one gazes out of the VitraHaus into the landscape, but when darkness falls, the illuminated interior of the building glows from within, while its physical structure seems to dissipate. The rooms open up; the glazed gable ends turn into display cases that shine across the Vitra Campus and into the surrounding countryside.

* Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address. Cite:
"VitraHaus / Herzog & de Meuron" 27 Jul 2011. ArchDaily. Accessed 31 Mar 2015. <http://www.archdaily.com/?p=50533>

I wasn’t shore about this design. I was thinking this is not architecture anymore, only design, shape. Hmm… Now, when it’s built I must change my mind. This looks very stylish and the detail make it just perfect:) p.s. Sou is very good, but this composition has it’s own continuum, so I don’t care who was first. Hope his idea will be built also.

ROT

I love it!

Samuel

I wish there were more interior photos or drawings available so we could have a greater understanding of the interaction of the elements inside.

Been to vitra when this building was still in progress and couldn’t imagine this to become a great building when finished, but the pictures proof me wrong and it turns out to be quite a fascinating piece of work!

It’s a bit regressive. The stacking is interesting but this type of simulacrum has been exhausted in the 80′s.

http://kristianbjornard.com kristian

Really?
It seems like a fitting approach for a showroom just for home furniture. It also plays strikingly with the standard vernacular shape for “house.”
The cut away plans that show how each layer interacts with that above and below seem quite amazing. Even the way the roof from one section below becomes seating for an amphitheater above without feeling forced seems like quite a victory.
I think it is a great architectural success that feels modern and timeless.

threads

hum. much effort went into defining the roof typology but its end result produces little in tectonic relationships to make any of the overlapping space truly meaningful or even active in any useful or interesting way. neo-glam domestic swiss chic turned euro trash dutch?

B

This is 98% Sou Fujimoto’s design. Who did it first?

Ralph Kent

Tend to agree with threads. Looks too much like a one-liners of a diagram faithfully translated into a building for my liking.

Seems way to formal to me. The overlapping spaces don’t seem to give enough to be a viable argument. Has architecture completely lost its integrity?

titisnurabadi

sou fujimoto ?? which one is the egg?? which one is the chicken??, anyway..it looks cool!

http://twitter.com/dinet/status/9538742715 DesignIntelligence

VitraHaus connects two Herzog & de Meuron themes: the archetypal house and stacked volumes http://bit.ly/9Q0bOr

j.f.

just nasty…everybody just following the mainstream, c´mon guys you shouldnt feel this exaggerated fascination about something just because its different or unique or just because its done by herzong and de meuron…it works more as a sculpture than its original purpose..

cranbury

Sure, the building is realized within the framework of a simple diagram, with clear, simple details which are designed to emphasize the building’s simple diagrammatic shape. But is this negative?

It is clear that the architectural characteristics which this BUILDING achieves are very rich and complex:
overlapping, interconnecting spaces, rich sectional qualities clean, precise details, beautiful lighting intricate and interesting patterns of circulation…

… what more could H&deM possibly do to convince you that a faithfully translated diagram can make successful architecture?

Ralph Kent

cranbury

I’m not sure if that comment was directed at me or not? As far as I’m concerned, its an easy idea, distilled into a boring diagram, faithfully translated into architecture, it is a negative in my book – an extrude and stack job. So I personally don’t like it and remain unconvinced. But obviously its different strokes for different folks and I fully respect other people’s right to like it. I just hope they can respect mine not to as well.

Obviously I fully take on board its for Vitra, so it need to shout to passersby and make some media headlines.

cranbury

… the notion of stacking simple iconic house extrusions is clearly not an attempt to create new, innovative shapes, so who cares if the idea is not completely virgin?

the project’s virtues lie in the dynamic and complex arrangements of very banal shapes. the architecture emerges from composition, rather than form only!

so why compare the shape-concept? it is only one minute fragment of this building’s total architectural essence.

threads

this is a complex arrangement? I suppose if you lay 10 pitch shaped tube/extrusions on top of one another you’re bound to get something. but this project is more of a commentary on swissness. There sense of humor is dead serious.

http://www.freundealterfahrzeuge.ch Chris

what’s worse: arrogant or swiss?

Mariana

I love the layout. Very modern!

Peter

you mean contemporary.

vishal

i dont know what you like………its good but, not too good.
though it surves the purpose & if client is happy , architect is happy then who cares………….